The subtle version (from Denver, Colorado):
And the not-so-subtle version (spotted by Ariana in Boulder, Colorado):
related: Is it really worth $1.59 to spend eternity in one of the lower kingdoms?
extra credit: Coke, Sprite, or Ice-T
Soda stealers are the lowest forms of life!
November 22nd, 2011 · 66 comments
FILED UNDER: beverages · Boulder · Colorado · Denver · restaurant · stealing
66 responses so far ↓
#1
Elmo
I’ve always thought that restaurants put those things out in front of the counter because it’s cheaper than paying an extra person to run the drink dispenser. The profit on soft drinks is huge which is why so many of them have taken to charging for water — giving water away cuts into the profits from soft drinks.
Nov 22, 2011 at 12:29 pm rating: 9
#2
DonnyD
Whoa… wait, what? A place named Cheba Hut is surprised that their stoner customers would steal soda? Ridiculing someone in front of their friends would really harsh their buzz.
Nov 22, 2011 at 12:30 pm rating: 11
#3
HolierThanThou
Does the Sheba Hut server cannabis colas or something? What’s up with those logos?
Nov 22, 2011 at 12:31 pm rating: 4
#4
redheadwglasses
#1: No need for an extra person to dispense soda. I did my purgatory time in fast food–the cashiers get the soda and it’s a pretty fast task.
However, I do agree completely that soda has a huge profit margin. I remember being told that a $1.50 pop cost the store under a nickel.
Nov 22, 2011 at 12:38 pm rating: 15
#5
kermit
It’s even less than a nickel. A box of Coke syrup (that’s what it comes as from the manufacturer) that I think is about 25 liters* costs about $25. It gets mixed in with tap water and in a busy store lasts at least a three days.
*For the metric system haters, 1 liter = 32 oz.
Nov 22, 2011 at 12:48 pm rating: 1
#6
Jimmy James
Most of the lowest forms of life (amoebas, paramecia, et cetera) lack the finances to pay for soda themselves, what do you expect them to do? I think they should consider something akin to Subway’s “Ducks Eat For Free” policy rather than subjecting these single-celled oragnisms to ridicule they can’t even comprehend.
Nov 22, 2011 at 1:00 pm rating: 14
#7
Chesire Cat
When I just ask for water I sometimes get that look where they think I am lying and going to try to steal soda. Pisses me off. My 4 year olds don’t need sugar or caffeine thanks. I like soda and sometimes even I don’t want it and would prefer water. We definitely don’t steal it.
I don’t mind the sign because it is targeting specifically soda stealers and not people who are honestly just wanting to get water in their cup.
Nov 22, 2011 at 1:21 pm rating: 6
#8
Taylor
Sometimes they get too picky about soda stealers. I was at a restaurant that gave free water and charged for soda. I got a water but i needed to take some medication and got a SMALL shot of sprite first and an employee spotted me and RUDELY explained the difference between the water and soda. The manager upgraded me for free after seeing the MASSIVE horsepill sized medication i had to take. Water would have gotten it down but the carbonation and flavor of soda helped better.
Nov 22, 2011 at 1:31 pm rating: 6
#9
infant tyrone
When I’m in Boulder, or near one of the other 13 Cheba Hut locations, Imma ask for a water glass, steal some soda, wait for the mental beatdown and ridicule show, and if it’s entertaining, I’ll give them the deuce that I placed alongside my sandwich when I sat down.
No Show…No Dough.
Here we are now
Entertain us
Yeah
Trust me
http://bit.ly/v35f5W
Nov 22, 2011 at 1:44 pm rating: 2
#10
The Elf
Debs 4 life!
Nov 22, 2011 at 1:47 pm rating: 1
#11
Zorin
I’ve always wondered what would happen if I got one of the little water cups and put soda in it.
I should do it sometime when I’m at a restaurant far from home that I wouldn’t mind getting banned at. It’d be a great opportunity to troll if they go overboard reacting to it.
Nov 22, 2011 at 3:31 pm rating: 0
#12
Quite Contrary
I’m presuming the lowest form of life sign was written before Sandusky’s indictment went public.
Nov 22, 2011 at 4:34 pm rating: 9
#13
Nunavut Guy
Joseph Goebbels did triple refills on his cream soda at Das Burgers and you know where that went.
Nov 22, 2011 at 7:40 pm rating: 6
#14
Palomon
What is the font on the Denver note? Stoner Sans?
Nov 22, 2011 at 10:32 pm rating: 4
#15
TracyLee
No surprise this was found in Boulder.
Nov 23, 2011 at 12:19 am rating: 0
#16
FeRD
Alchemy is HARD, and if I was thinking of trying to transmute something from water to soft drink, I’m pretty sure I would not start with my own mind! I don’t care how much assistance their (hopefully licensed) Alchemist Cashiers are willing to provide.
Nov 23, 2011 at 3:20 am rating: 4
#17
Canthz_B
You know, if you attract a Pepsi crowd, you’re going to have thievery.
Coca-Cola people are much more trustworthy.
Nov 23, 2011 at 9:24 am rating: 9
#18
infant tyrone
Even though the store manager and district supervisor had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic, that Dr. Pepper drinkers used way more toilet paper than the average customer and stole large quantities of napkins, straws, plastic spoons, and both the pink and blue varieties of calorie-free sweeteners, Cheba Hut was compelled by the local constabulary to keep serving this resource-intensive and light-fingered slice of Boulder’s demimonde.
Testimony obtained in sworn depositions of Cheba Hut employees indicate that the pressure to serve was couched in terms of a beverage-driven proto-version (this was back in 1987, believe it or not) of the politically correct “you can’t single people out” trope.
Internal BPD memos of the era obtained under the CFOIA reveal a more insidious basis for this early reach of Boulder’s Big Brother into the day to day operations of a nominally private commercial enterprise. Turns out the BPD chief had transferred from the NYPD a few years previously, where his first beat had been in lower Manhattan and had included
Max’s Kansas City. His time in the neighborhood had had the effect of turning the then rookie cop into a bit of a conceptual artist, so when he got wind of the straws and sweetener info, he decreed that the Dr.P-loving market would be catered to by any means necessary, hence the evolution of the BPD’s PC BS against “beverage profiling”. The Chief had something in mind and was channeling all of his extra-legal authority toward the goal of making his dream a reality.
The night before he was to retire, the Chief’s vision (or whatever a vision should be called if it involves 95% audio) finally came to pass when he was, as had become his wont, haunting the Cheba Hut parking lot.
He saw the Dr.P-wielding trio come out the front door, so obviously wasted that he got a little contact buzz from just watching.
This was what he had imagined, so ideally a Three Stooges of stonerdom that they might as well have been named Baked, Toasted, and Fried.
Huddled over the hood of their dilapidated 1972 Pinto, one unpocketed the filched goods with the sort of surreptitious flourish that only the herbally blissed seem to be capable of executing, tore open a blue packet and proceeded, albeit quite slowly, the bud in Boulder being quite beatific back in the late 80′s, to crush the white contents on the orange hood and fashion the resulting extra-fine dust into a sort of 3-spoked powdery peace sign, after which Baked and Toasted pulled out straws and the trio got down to hoovering up every last morsel of that aspartame goodness.
Watching from the shadows, but still able to see the whole tableau thanks to the glass layout in his recently introduced 1985 Jeep Cherokee,
the Chief kept his glass rolled up all around, knowing that any sound he heard from the Stooges would only spoil the moment, the interior, mental audio track of which was a tune he had heard for the first time on his first night on the first street of his first beat.
The tableau and the tune synchronized sweetly to show once again that sometimes life does imitate art, and as the Chief’s mind bounced rapidly (like a metaphorical golf ball in a tile shower) between the short-lived glam-rock scene of 1970′s NYC and what then, back in 1987, was “now”, what he heard on both time-walls was what he realized he simply had to use as background music for his answering machine, starting tomorrow when he was retired and would not have to explain it to thee, occasional citizen, politician, or journalist. http://bit.ly/rQ077R
Nov 23, 2011 at 2:05 pm rating: 1
#19
noname
So those sodas are ridiculously overpriced AND very bad for you. Why do people still buy them?
Nov 24, 2011 at 11:53 pm rating: 2
#20
bookworm
I remember working fast food and attempting to block the local high-schoolers from stealing water during their lunch time by preparing ice waters and handing them out as they were ordered.
The looks on the t0-be thieves faces were priceless. The hissy fits that they threw after realizing they couldn’t steal soda were pretty funny too.
Nov 25, 2011 at 1:35 pm rating: 5
#21
mariam67
I like how it worked so well, Deb actually felt the need to apologize.
Nov 25, 2011 at 9:03 pm rating: 0
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